President Obama’s election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power – but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring.

Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny’s and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers’ bills and will reduce his employees’ hours.

With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is ‘the only alternative. I’ve got to pass on the cost to the customer.’

The fast-food business owner is set to hold meetings at his restaurants in December where he will tell employees, ‘that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.’

We’ve discussed several other restaurant or retail chains having to make similar cuts to their employees work hours due to the penalties involved in Obamacare’s complexities.

Beyond the complete elimination of a significant number of American jobs is another looming problem created by the health care law – a shift from full-time to part-time workers.

Sean Hackbarth of Free Enterprise explains:

A JP Morgan economist “points out that 8.3 million people are working in part-time jobs even though they’d prefer full-time work. Unfortunately, because of President Obama’s health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), workers in the hotel, restaurant, and retail industries could be pushed into part-time jobs working less than 30 hours per week.”

“Under the health care law, if a company has more than 50 “full time equivalent” workers, a combination of full and part-time employees, but doesn’t offer “affordable” coverage that meets the government’s minimum value standard, the company will have to pay a penalty. This penalty is determined by the number of full-time employees minus 30 full-time employees. So to reiterate a very important point: part-time workers are not part of the penalty formula. The health care law creates a perverse incentive to hire part-time versus full-time workers.”

Tangible examples of Obamacare causing a reduction in full-time workers:

Darden Restaurants

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Darden Restaurants, a casual dining chain best known for their Red Lobster, Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants, is “experimenting with limiting the hours of some of its workers to avoid health care requirements under the Affordable Care Act when they take effect in 2014”.

JANCOA Janitorial Services

The CEO of JANCOA, Mary Miller, testified to Congress that Obamacare was a “dream killer”, adding that one option she had to consider “is reducing the majority of my team members to part-time employment in order to reduce the amount that I will be penalized.”

Kroger

The American retailer in Cincinnati, Ohio recently was reported to be planning a significant slashing of their hourly workers.

Doug Ross writes:

Operative Faith (a mid-level manager with the company) reveals that Kroger will soon join the ranks of Darden Restaurants and slash the hours of its non-exempt (hourly) workers to avoid millions in Obamacare penalties.

According to the source, Obamacare could result in tens of thousands of Kroger employees being limited to working 28 hours per week.

Summary

This is by no means, meant to be an exhaustive list. But it is meant to provide examples of real companies, real jobs, and real names, soon to be added to the growing list of employment casualties provided by the inevitable implementation of Obamacare.

Recently, the Arizona-based Super PAC, National Horizon ran a television ad in support of U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long. The ad hammers Kirsten Gillibrand for her support of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act which contains numerous hidden taxes, including a medical device tax which has eliminated hundreds of jobs already in New York.

Rather than countering the facts contained in the ad, Team Gillibrand has decided to focus on the text of statements in the ad, which to them resemble newspaper headlines.

As a result, attorneys representing Ms. Gillibrand have sent letters to TV station executives demanding that the ads be pulled for being ‘misleading and deceptive’.

Oddly enough, when Long asked Gillibrand to denounce an Obama Super PAC ad a couple of months ago which portrayed Mitt Romney as being responsible for the death of a man’s wife, she was nowhere to be found.

What Gillibrand gains from trying to censor an ad because it portrays her in a negative light is questionable. If every political ad were pulled based on being ‘misleading and deceptive’ there’d be no political ads on either side of the aisle. Anywhere. Ever.

More curious is the fact that Gillibrand is not disputing the facts put forth in the ad – that her support of the Affordable Care Act contributed to the loss of jobs in New York State. The truth is, denying that reality would be difficult.

Welch Allyn, a company that manufactures medical diagnostic equipment in central New York, announced in September that they would be laying off 275 employees, or roughly 10% of their workforce. One of the major reasons discussed for the layoffs was a proactive response to the Medical Device Tax mandated by the new healthcare law.

The Medical Device Tax is a 2.3% excise tax levied on manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices, and is scheduled to begin wreaking havoc on the medical industry, hospitals, doctors and patients, in 2013.

In an interview with the Syracuse Post-Standard, Steve Meyer, President and CEO at Welch Allyn, called the tax “onerous and impactful”.

Meyer provided a basic mathematical model to highlight his point:

For example, a company that has $100 million in sales would pay $2.3 million in tax, Meyer explained. If that same company earns $10 million in profit that tax now represents a 23 percent dip in the bottom line, he said.

When bottom lines are effected, companies will necessarily adjust profit margins through other means – in this case, a staff restructuring.

Gillibrand and the Affordable Care Act is indeed costing jobs in New York, there is no doubt. Isn’t trying to take the focus off of that, and placing it on frivolous censorship attempts, in itself a ‘misleading and deceptive’ act?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday evening that the 2010 healthcare law, which prompted complaints from conservatives that Democrats far exceeded their constitutional authority, actually helps people meet the goal outlined in the Declaration of Independence, which promotes mankind’s rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Speaking on the House floor, Pelosi called on her colleagues to remember “what our founders put forth in our founding documents, which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that is exactly what the Affordable Care Act helps to guarantee.”

Pelosi explained that the law gives people the flexibility they need to pursue these goals, since it makes it easier for them to switch jobs in order to pursue their career or family goals.

“A healthier life, the liberty to pursue happiness, free of the constraints that lack of healthcare might provide to a family,” she said. “If you want to be photographer, a writer, an artist, a musician, you can do so. If you what to start a business, if you want to change jobs, under the Affordable Care Act, you have that liberty to pursue your happiness.”

And so that is why I’m so pleased that this week we can celebrate the two-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act.”